Creating Cleavage - A Breast Pocket Tutorial

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Hi ya!! ／(^ x ^)＼

Thank you for stopping by! So you want to learn how to make cleavage in your skin suit? Hopefully this guide can help you out!!

So, just a tiny bit of history? Originally I was starting a new project where I wanted to show some cleavage but I didn’t want to show any of my actual skin ‘cause I’m kind of modest in real life about that, lol!! Mid-Western values and all. =)

Anyway, I knew I needed to make some sort of skin suit and did a ton of looking and research on the internet and by luck stumbled upon Natsuki-San’s website on how to create cleavage! I thought, “OMG, this is perfect, it’s exactly what I’m looking for!!”. Also, total bonus, but since I was binding myself down and would be using silicone breast forms I could “reset” my bust line and really accentuate my figure to whatever size I wanted and really get that hour-glass shape without surgery or breast implants! So much win!! LOL!! ／(^ x ^)＼

Now, unfortunately Natsuki-San is closing down her site soon and I don’t know how much longer it will be available? =( So I printed a bunch of her tutorials and instructions as PDF’s with links in the Reference section below and I highly highly recommend taking a look through them! She started in something like 2010 and worked on refining her techniques up to and through 2015!! So much amazing patience and dedication!!

Anyway, long story longer, not everything Natsuki does works for me. Like, for instance I bind my natural breasts down and then use the binders and velcro to serve as artificial Coopers Ligaments to attach the breast pockets too. I just find they feel more natural and I guess bouncy that way? And I can also adjust the breast pockets up and down depending on what I need I guess? Anyway, my point is your mileage may vary and what works for me or Natsuki-San may not work for you? I would play around a bit to find what method of attachment is comfortable for you! =)

Also, take your time and be patient!! Oh and practice!!! Like, for me I seriously kept experimenting and trying all sorts of things for probably a year and a half, off and on of course, until I found something that worked for me and was comfortable. I know that may sound a bit intimidating, like OMG an entire year!? Hopefully some of the information in this guide can help shorten your time? But enjoy the process!! Like, I totally had a blast trying new things and failing and learning then trying something new! Failure is always an option and it rocks!!! I started with super old t-shirts and would buy those stretchy sports shirts from my local Thrift store by the arm-load (they are only like $3 per shirt at a good thrift store!) to practice on and experiment on and just sew my little heart out!

KK, Freddy to get started!? ／(^. ~)＼

Step 1: Make a pattern for the breast pocket

So, the very first thing I learned was the importance of making a pattern based on the breast form you’re going to be using. At first I was using Natsuki-San’s patterns and they were working okay, but, I dunno’, I just found I wanted a better fit for the breast form to make the pocket out of? Also, I found if I left a little bit of a margin, not much, like 2 millimeters or so? Anyway, it gave the pocket just a bit more overall stretch to accommodate the breast form once the form was inserted. See the pics below and feel free to click on the links for the high-res copies!

Picture 1: Side by side showing silicone breast form and paper pattern based on breast form.Picture 2: Paper pattern on top of breast form to illustrate small margin around

Step 2: Trace pattern onto the backing of your breast pocket
So unfortunately I lost my pictures from the last time I did this. =( But I do plan on making another suit soon so will update with more pics later. At any rate, you can use whatever you want to trace the pattern, I do this really to get an idea of how much material I’ll need for the chest plate and how far down to extend the velcro.

For material I used a sandwich of felt on the side facing the breast form so it’s a nice soft material the form is pressed against, hopefully extending the life of the form cuz it’s not rubbing up against anything too abrasive? Then I found this really nice medium weight soft canvas material in Jo-Ann Fabrics on sale? I’ll have to look to see exactly what it is but I think it’s cotton and it’s has a nice soft feel but is sturdy enough to hold it’s shape and support the weight of the forms once they are in the pocket. I think any material really would work, probably even old jeans!! So long as it has enough structure to hold it’s shape. I found thin material like t-shirts were just too stretchy and had too much give. I mean they made the false breasts have awesome bounce when I moved!! But they tended to sag a lot and I’d always have to adjust them. Old t-shirts were great for practicing and refining, not so much for the final product, lol!!

If you think about it, this actually makes sense? Like, it’s kind of gross to think about but your skin is basically like the outer part of the hadatai and there’s this pocket formed between your skin and your rib cage filled with basically fat and glands that forms the breast? And your breasts are attached to your body via the Coopers Ligaments. So when you move or just, I dunno’, walk or run your breasts are moving but they’re really moving around against your skin and the Coopers Ligament are rock solid and preventing your breasts from hitting your knees, lol!!

Anyway, it made sense at least to me to design something similar to our natural breasts which is why I opted for a solid, well secured backing and then the breast form can move around within the pocket against the stretch of the “Skin” of the hadatai. If that makes sense?

It works for me at least, lol!! Please do whatever feels comfortable though for you!! Natsuki-San, for example, sews a sports like bra pattern into her hadatai which seems to work for her? And she looks great in it!!! So again, I just found this works for me, maybe you’ll prefer Natsuki-San’s method? Don’t forget to check out her pages below BTW in the reference section!!

Picture 1: Back of breast pocket showing velcro attachments and sewing pattern. If you look closely you'll see I'm actually off on my sewing versus where my outline of the breast form is. This is okay as the black outline was only to show me where to position the velcro straps and to estimate about how much material I'd need.

Step 3: Cut your your chest plate, sew the felt to the canvas (optional) and attach the velcro (not optional if you’re following my method!)
I think this is pretty easy? You basically just want to remove some of the excess material to it’s easier to work with in the sewing machine. I do leave about an inch or so margin from where I’ve cut to the edge of my pattern I traced. I’m not the most, erm, accurate person in the world when it comes to cutting so I’d rather leave myself a bit of insurance in case I cut too much, lol!! What do they say? Measure twice, cut once? =)

Step 4: Trace your natural breasts on your body against the Hadatai!
This is where I’m really sad I lost my previous pictures because I showed a bit of this process! But it’s pretty easy to describe I think?

Basically when I first started I was using Natsuki-San’s method of super exact measuring and was just giving myself fits because, well see above, I’m not super accurate!! Anyway, months later, like literally months, I said screw it and just traced my own breasts and it worked out soooooo much better!! Like, we’re all built differently, right? And I think this method actually allows a better fit between your body and the breast forms you are using.

So a slight aside? Your natural breasts are attached to your ribcage from about the 2’nd rib (just below your collarbone) down to your 6’th or 7’nth rib (just above that soft middle part you can feel on your sternum). At first I was like measuring myself and trying to transpose that onto my practice shirts cuz I wanted to be anatomically accurate but there’s a better way!

So, you can actually do this with any shirt to practice with before transferring to your hadatai. Basically I put on whatever garment I want to sew a breast pocket into and using one of those air-soluble markers (I use this brand but you can use whatever works for you) I mark just under my natural breasts where they attach to my own rib cage and then the middle of my sternum. That’s it!! So like, not to be gross but tracing down from my nipples to the underside of my breast to where I guess it makes a crease and attaches to my rib cage, if that makes sense?

Anyway, I take off the shirt or hadatai and actually stuff a pillow into it. The reason I do that is just to give myself something to draw against? Like at first I was just laying the garment flat and could be frustrating cuz it would bunch up or move on me so I found if I put an old sleeping pillow into it that gave it enough stretch to fill out the fabric and prevent it from moving around too much?

At any rate, this is where your breast form patterns are super useful again!! I center the form using that line I made for the center of the sternum and giving about a 2.5 mm margin on either side (5 mm total) to create separation and mimic what your natural sternum is already doing for you? Then I just line up the bottom of the breast form with the bottom of my mark on my garment and trace the form from the bottom of the armpit on the garment up to my center sternum mark and extend that line all the way up to the neckline of the garment.

I actually used to stop about mid-way like Natsuki-San recommends but I found it creates this weird like folding point I guess for the outer Hadtai to bunch up around? Like, the top part of the fabric wants to fold down and over the bottom load bearing part? I wrecked my little brain trying all sorts of things to try and get it out, like using the PVC boards Natsuki recommends to stretching the Hadatai to within an inch of its life, all to no avail. =(

Anyway, you can see the weird folding thing going on in the picture below circled in red. I tried all sorts of tricks and nothing seemed to work beyond just sewing up to the neckline. So if you know of a better way of doing this, let me know, I’d love to learn!!

Picture 1: Area circled in red is the weird folding area which seems to always want to double over on itself for some reason? If anyone has any suggestions for fixing this I'd be thrilled to know it!!

Sorry it’s kind of gross looking (please ignore the black spot in the middle!! That’s from an adhesive I use to attach silicone nipples when I want a more naughty look!!!) but in the picture below I highlighted my sewing pattern i yellow. As you can see it’s basically like a “U” with a really long arm on one side? One end of the “U” starts almost at the neckline of the garment (the blue line below) and end just at the bottom of the armpit (the other blue line at the bottom is the stitching of where the arm attaches to the garment).

Picture 1: Close up of left breast area where the yellow highlighted area is the sewing pattern for the breast pocket and the blue areas are the neckline and the part where the arm attaches to the garment. Picture 2: Just another picture showing how far up I go for the center area, it's almost all the way up to the neckline!!

Step 5: Pin and sew!!

Again, I’m sads that I lost my micro-SD card with all those pictures of the process!! Anyway, hopefully I can explain this well enough? This is where Natsuki-San and I align again where we sew with the outside of the Hadatai, the “skin” facing us and we basically sew the backing to the Hadatai to create a breast pocket.

So lessons learned? If you follow Natuski-San’s method give yourself plenty of room and just be patient and go slow and steady!!! There’s a lot of material to have to maneuver, between the hadatai itself and the bra!! And for sure check every so often that you’re not doubled over and accidentally sewing the hadatai to itself or like the bra to some place you don’t want, lol! Otherwise you’ll be following another exercise in patience seam ripping out the mistake and having to start over again!

I’ve done it and it’s not fun but at least a learning experience!! Oh, and nothing you do is irreparable. Like, as you build up your sewing skills you’ll just I think naturally get better and you’ll see that fabric becomes your canvas and you can fix anything you may initially make a mistake on. You can’t break it!! You can always just seam rip it out and start over again. =)

Also, when I started I would pin the ever living daylights out of it like Natsuki-San’s example!! OMG, I was a pinning maniac!! As I’ve gotten better and more confident I guess I really only use maybe 4 or 5 pins? And I pin one side first, sew it, then go back and pin the other side and sew it. The reason for that is I found when I pinned the ever-living daylights out of it, I still had to manipulate and move the fabric around a ton and there is nothing more frustrating than getting pricked from a pin on the other side of the garment that you’re not even working on yet!!!

Oh oh!! And just a note about sewing? So at first I bought all these crazy kinds of threads and needles, from the stretchy thread (which is a total PITA to work with, lol!! So so so hard!!) to fancy stretch needles to heavy duty needles, lol! It ends up, for me at least, just the bog standard needle and thread works just fine. What I found to be more important was the stitching pattern you used.

You might be able to see it better in the high-res picture on the link but found a tight zig-zag pattern was best. I experimented with a bunch of different stitch widths and lengths and found if you go too short it beats up the material too much and you get holes in it. Too long and it just doesn’t seem to hold. My “Goldilocks” setting, at least for my machine (a Singer 7258 BTW) was a 1.0 width and 1.0 length is about perfect. Your mileage may vary.

So it’s pretty straight forward? Just align your backing with your patten and take it nice and slow and sew them together. I start at the neckline and work my way to the armpit area but honestly either direction should work. I personally like my breast plate method more to create a pocket cuz it’s less material to work with and bunch up and make mistakes, but honestly try both methods on practice shirts and pick the one you feel more comfy wearing?

Step 6: Make your binder or your under-shirt to attach everything too!
I actually use the same binder across all of my Hadatai’s and it’s served me well!! Though I may re-design it to use a softer material and add some cross-bracing of some sort in the back to distribute the weight more evenly.

Anyway, super super simple. Take an old shirt, attach velcro to the shoulders (I put the “cloth” section on my hadatai and the plastic “Hook and loop” section on my binder) and you’re done!! You may want to add side velcro too similar to what I do to mind myself so it doesn’t shift too much? Again, my experience at least was you want a nice, solid foundation that doesn’t move to attach the breast pocket too, otherwise the girls really jiggle and move around!! Though I suppose that might be a “Look” to go for, lol!!

Picture 1: My binder I use to both flatten out my natural breasts and provide a solid mounting point for the velcro on the breast pockets. As you can see I have velcro on the sides to compress me down, then velcro strips which run from about my shoulders up and around to about the middle of my back? It's a pretty long velcro strip, but it also give me a lot of flexibility to adjust everything so the girls are where they are supposed to be and it's also comfy for me.

Oh one thing to add!! If you do use the side straps, I found adding a bit of extra padding to the underarm area was key!! I’m not sure of the physics around it but this point seemed to transfer a lot of the weight of the silicone forms and also was just a high cloth friction wear point? Like, if you’ve ever done any long endurance races, where your socks or shorts or just any clothing that’s constantly rubbing against your body for long periods of time can cause skin irritation and redness? Like that. Anyway, I added a bit of padding I had laying around and it helped tremendously!!

Picture 1: So the pen is pointing to two pads I ended up sewing into my binder, just under the armpits. For some reason these seem to be heavy friction points I guess where I would get chaffing and, not to be gross, but like a clothing friction burn from the constant rubbing? Adding these little pads helped a ton!!

Step 7: Putting it all together!!

I think this is pretty self explanatory but I took some pics just in case! Basically step into your hadatai like you normally do and just pull it up to chest level. From there I adjust to where the bottom of the breast pockets align with where breasts naturally end I guess and attach the velcro. Oh, I put on the binder first of course, lol!!

From there adjust if I need to and slip in the silicone breast forms. I check things again and adjust again if needed then when I’m happy enough with how it’s all looking I slip my arms into the arm holes and zip up!!

Picture 1: Illustrating where the velcro attaches and how the binder looks relative to the hadatia "skin" hanging off of it in a loose form. Not exactly cute looking yet but it fills out nicely once it's all zipped up and put together!

And here’s the final product!!

I know it looks like I'm trying to show off, and maybe I am a little, lol!! But honestly what I wanted to show in this picture was showing how it all fills out once you get the breast forms in and you're all zipped up. Also you can see where the center breast line extends all the way up to the neckline and you can just barely see my binder around my shoulders and actually at my neckline too. Hopefully it gives you a better idea of how it all comes together?

Conclusion

Thanks so much for reading this guide and please don’t hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or if anything isn’t clear? Oh also Neko Nico gave me some ideas on how to use your natural breasts if you’d prefer instead of silicone forms. And when she told me I was like, OMG, why didn’t I think of that!? LOL!!

Anyway, what she does is either cut out the backing of the breast pockets once you sew them in. And another method she said, which I haven’t tried is to take an old underwire bra, cut out the cups then sew the bra onto the hadatai. May need more experiments to try this!!

Take care of you and thank you again for stopping by and for being YOU!! =)